…you mix a little boy, 1 roll of film, 3 red objects, 2 turquoise objects, a field, willow tree, mid day sun and a photographer?
Mommy melting material.
This session took 15 minutes total this afternoon and a perfect example of what is possible during one of my new mini sessions.
I am doing these to study film as a personal project. This is a personal lesson in color, working in mid-day light (1 pm), exposure and a mini session with 1 roll of film (36 frames).
What do you think?
I grew up in a yard. A simple little 1/4 acre suburban lot that held a jungle to my curious eyes amongst my parents gardens. We were green thumbs and spent a majority of our time outside, and playing the yards, discovering critters right and left. Instead of shying away from the unknown, we were raised to understand them, explore them, learn them and know who we could “play with” and who we could not. I held snakes, lizards, turtles, worms, and many other bugs and critters. They were like treasures amongst the arduous tasks of weeding and manacuring the landscape. I was determined to try to raise my kids the same. It is nice to not fear what we live amongst. It is good to know that they have their place and we have ours, explore them kindly and then send them on their way.
I have made it my goal to try to document my kids discoveries. We live on 5 acres of woods, creeks and wetlands in a nice suburban neighborhood and get our fair share of exotic (to us) discoveries. Her are three of the several finds in just the last couple of days. Those not represented were our daily bird visitors, a toad, several ant colonies, worms, copper head snake (that was taken care of sadly. One of my dogs did get bit by, she is fine, but it was residing near the kids playground), 2 turtles, and a salamander. As I write this I vow to try to take an image of each of these as they find them for my kids memories (maybe not the copperheads). So today we have a couple of skinks that were taking a dip in our watering tin outside and an American White Moth that found its way at our front door jam.
I spent the last hour taking a little journey through hard drive history. My dear friend Jen lost her disc of some of her images during her move and has been begging me to get them to her so she can print some for her new home. So here I sit with 6 hard drives scattered around me cursing myself for not being as organized as I am now….then. However, the files were found and it brought back YEARS of memories. Here is one of my favorite images from a quick impromptu maternity session with Jen in November of 2008.
Out of all the images I have taken…as the 6+ HDs sit around me can attest that there are thousands…this is still one of my absolute favorite images. It is grainy due to inferior gear and a moody room…but I adore the grain. The dust specs of my not so perfectly clean home dancing in the sun…and the innocence of a 2 year old in her training panties and momma showing off her baby bump. Simple, raw, momentary. I love it, and I love the 3 girls (baby ended up being another lovely little girl).
I need to get back to this…or forward to more of it.
The imagination of children always amazes me. I have 3 now…and each one still manages to surprise me on what they can come up with, what interests them, and how they visualize the world around them. Luke is my third, and my last. He is still the baby of the group but does all he can to follow as close behind his big brother’s footsteps as he can. For me this means, trying to explain to a 4 year old why some games he just can’t play, or do…he is just not old enough. Most days, we fail miserably at this.
When we were kids we played Centipede, PacMan, and Cops and Robbers. Today they want Call of Duty Black Ops, Gears of War, Halo and any other Zombie gun fighting game they can get their hands on. My boys have always had a fascination with war, guns and swords. All the way from Medieval, Civil War to futuristic battles. Maybe it is the strong ancestry military gene in them, maybe they are just boys being boys. I struggle daily with where to draw the line…how much is too much and when to put my foot down. They are good kids and don’t have a mean bone in their bodies…so we let them play war…run around the house killing zombies and protecting us from the evil wares around us. We just keep an eye out and make sure the battle stays on the “good” side.
